Errors, shaky pitching lead to Pirates' blowout loss vs. Braves

An optimist might say that three Pittsburgh Pirates errors that led to three unearned runs Tuesday night created an insignificant wrinkle that easily can be ironed out.

A pessimist – and their numbers are growing – will note that the Pirates’ 12-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves before a crowd of 13,963 at PNC Park was yet another example of the team’s inability to hang with the best teams in the National League.

The Pirates are 3-14 against the Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers and Colorado Rockies, five of the top six teams in the league.

You can’t speak of the latest loss – the 11^th in the past 15 games – without mentioning the errors, but starter Steven Brault placed much of the blame on his own shoulders.

“Just getting behind hitters, trying to make some adjustments mid-game and a little over-adjustment here, a little over-adjustment there,” said Brault, who got away with allowing only one earned run. Another scored on catcher Elias Diaz’s throwing error in the first inning.

Brault threw 93 pitches in four innings, giving up five hits and three walks. He also hit a batter and threw a wild pitch.

“Finally, I was able to put it all together but I took too many pitches,” he said. “I was able to skate through some innings, but I left too many outs there for the bullpen to cover, and that’s just not OK.”

Manager Clint Hurdle might have a decision to make before Brault’s turn in the rotation comes up next week, either in Milwaukee or Atlanta. For now, he said Brault’s biggest challenge was trying to attain pitch efficiency.

”We had some inconsistencies with his arm slot,” Hurdle said. “At the end of the day, he had nine three-ball counts.”

Relief pitcher Clay Holmes pitched the fifth and sixth almost without incident. But trouble started in the sixth when the Braves’ Austin Riley reached base on an error by third baseman Kevin Newman, who started there for only the third time this season. Newman was in the starting lineup to get more right-handed hitters against Braves starter Max Fried.

Riley eventually scored on an RBI single by former Pirate Matt Joyce.

Then, in the seventh, eighth and ninth, relief pitchers Kyle Crick, Geoff Hartlieb and Rookie Davis each allowed three runs per inning. Eight of the nine were earned as each pitcher gave up a home run.

Despite Newman’s error, the Pirates still led, 5-3, through six innings, but Crick, who hadn’t allowed a run since April 22, gave up a three-run homer to Riley in the seventh. Before that, Josh Donaldson walked and Nick Markakis reached base when left fielder Bryan Reynolds dropped his sinking line drive.

“I thought I executed (the pitch to Riley) pretty well,” said Crick, who came into the game after stringing together 16 consecutive scoreless innings. “There’s a chance he knew it was coming or something, because he put a pretty good swing on it.”

The Braves (33-27) have a formidable lineup, but Crick said he tried not to think about that.

“I don’t really give them any credit, to be honest with you,” he said. “I just go out and try to execute my pitches. And whatever happens, happens. In that particular 0-1 slider, I think I executed the pitch; just a better piece of hitting.”

Donaldson hit a three-run homer in the eighth against Geoff Hartlieb, and Freddie Freeman put a foul ball into the Allegheny River off Rookie Davis in the ninth, before keeping a two-run shot fair.

The result was the 12^th double-digit score put up by a Pirates opponent this season – the sixth since May 24.

Those developments were difficult to accept because the Pirates (28-31) had 4-1 and 5-2 leads after the first and second innings.

The game was the first this season that didn’t include slugging first baseman Josh Bell in the starting lineup. Hurdle gave him a night off to refresh.

Into Bell’s spot in the cleanup position stepped Melky Cabrera, who entered the game with 15 fewer home runs and 34 fewer RBIs than Bell.

But the 34-year-old Cabrera did his best to mitigate those shortfalls early in the game when he hit a two-run homer to trigger a two-out, four-run outburst in the first and added an RBI single in the second. After Cabrera’s homer, the Pirates added two more runs on a single by Diaz, followed by doubles from Jose Osuna, who was the stand-in for Bell at first base, and Cole Tucker.